Sens. Kirsten Gillbrand and Richard Blumenthal argue that 'a woman’s right to make her own health decisions must be protected.'Close

“This week, the GOP House is considering H.R. 3, a bill so restrictive it would limit a woman’s access to reproductive care even when her life was in danger,” the two senators write. “We know a woman’s right to make her own health decisions must be protected. But this is about even more than choice, this is about making sure women and families can get the care they need when they need it.”

House Judiciary Democrats plan to bring a woman to the Wednesday hearing who will speak about the importance of insurance coverage for an abortion, relating her experience after her wanted pregnancy encountered complications.

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Outside groups, like NARAL Pro-Choice America, have mobilized around the issue. They hosted a Monday conference call with Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), ThinkProgress and Change.org. Since November, they have channeled 210,000 messages to Congress on reproductive health issues.

Anti-abortion groups are also framing the hearings as a crucial moment in pushing forward legislation that, in the Democratic-controlled House, would not have gained traction.

“There is a time in legislative initiatives where all points converge and the door opens,” Susan B. Anthony List's Marjorie Dannenfelser said in a statement to POLITICO. “On federal funding of abortion, that time is now. … The Congress is overwhelmingly pro-life now and has vowed to fix the problem permanently.”

The hearings are shaping up to largely focus on a provision of the health reform law that would expand conscience-clause provisions to cover, among other things, emergency medical procedures.

While anti-abortion advocates laud the new provisions as standardizing a patchwork of state-level, conscience-clause protection, supporters of abortion rights say the new legislation could imperil women whose lives could be threatened by withholding the procedure.

“It is a legal maneuver to … essentially reinvent [conscience clauses] as a right over which individual institutions can sue and get damages,” says Sara Rosenbaum, who chairs George Washington University’s health policy department, and will testify at the hearings for both H.R. 3 and 358.

George Mason University’s Helen Alvare will present the complete opposite opinion, arguing that the new legislation would provide appropriate protections to health providers who have a conscience objection to abortion.

“The issue is really coming to a head with this legislation,” says Alvare, whose academic research has focused on conscience-clause protections and who has previously worked for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishop’s Pro-Life Secretariat. “It’s a bad idea to suggest abortion should be made available at the conscience-driven providers.”

The law leaves them very free to come up with mechanisms to get them to a provider.

The House Judiciary’s constitution subcommittee was to take up H.R. 3 at 4 p.m. Testifying at the hearing will be Rosenbaum, Family Research Council’s Cathy Ruse and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishop’s Richard Doerflinger.

Possibly because there can be perfectly understandable reasons why an abortion needs to be performed at 9 months? As in the mothers life can be at risk?

The abomination that worked in Pennsylvinia was a back alley quack who should be looked at as what abortion will be brought to if we try to deprive and shame those who need them into fleeing the public eye.

Who's going to take care of the kid after their born?

Who are you to judge when birth control fails?

Who are you to judge the desires of a woman who found thier rapist left them a present?

Not every abortion is for some little strumpet, and there is no "abortion industry" when compared to the sheer and scope of the "baby industry".

Riddle me this:

If life begins at conception, then can't we go one step further and say that every 9 months sans baby is one dead possi-baby?

Have as many abortions as your body will tolerate but don't use my tax money to pay for it. These two bills are not changing your right to abortion. Expecting others to pay for your choice should be my choice to not assist you.

Why is it that liberals pretend that they want people to "stay out of women's bodies" but then turn around and demand another person's money to perform the act that they just forbade anyone else having any decisions over other than the woman herself?

Oh I know. It's because they are hypocrites who use the "personal privacy" lie as a cover for the truth of their profound admiration for baby-killing.

If baby-killing is solely a personal matter, than use solely your own money to do it.

The clinic in Philadelphia may be mild compared to abortion clinics in third world countries,yet President Obama choose as one of his first actions as president to lift the ban on our tax money funding abortion overseas.A Planned Parenthood clinic sent the poor Virginia woman who died to the philly butcher who killed her,they circumvent the law with arrogance.Stop federal money going to Planned Parenthood,they are a corrupt organisation.

b. even more so if your an unborn woman in China where you can only have 1 child and they keep aborting the girls until they get a boy (or a woman at all in China, since they can't CHOOSE to have more than one child)

c. a woman who has had an abortion thinking it was no big deal, and just can't seem to get over taking her own chilld's life, no matter how hard she tries, it is there forever.

d. a woman or young girl who is abused or raped, and her abuser can continue to abuse or rape, because Planned Parenthood doesnt ask questions

e. any woman who realizes "women's rights" in terms of abortion on demand, really is more like "men's right's" to use women on demand

In her suffragist newspaper The Revolution, Susan B Anthony wrote that “no matter what the motive, love of ease, or a desire to save from suffering the unborn innocent, the woman is awfully guilty who commits the deed. It will burden her conscience in life, it will burden her soul in death; but oh! thrice guilty is he who, for selfish gratification…drove her to the desperation which impelled her to the crime.”

And Anthony was by no means the only early feminist to be pro-life. In fact, many of the mothers of feminism were staunchly pro-life and weren't afraid to show it. Elizabeth Cady Stanton was another of the early feminists who were outspoken in their opposition to abortion.

“When we consider that women are treated as property, it is degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we see fit,” Stanton wrote to her friend Julia Ward Howe in 1873.

Victoria Woodhull, the first female stockbroker on Wall Street, also became the first woman to run for President in 1870. An early suffragette with a flair for the outrageous, Woodhull personified the modern feminist slogan “well-behaved women rarely make history.” (She was repeatedly arrested and jailed for her political activities.) And she, too, opposed abortion.

“A human life is a human life and equally to be held sacred whether it be a day or a century old,” Woodhull wrote. “Wives…to prevent becoming mothers…deliberately murder [children] while yet in their wombs. Can there be a more demoralized condition than this? ” [...]

In her suffragist newspaper The Revolution, Susan B Anthony wrote that “no matter what the motive, love of ease, or a desire to save from suffering the unborn innocent, the woman is awfully guilty who commits the deed. It will burden her conscience in life, it will burden her soul in death; but oh! thrice guilty is he who, for selfish gratification…drove her to the desperation which impelled her to the crime.”

And Anthony was by no means the only early feminist to be pro-life. In fact, many of the mothers of feminism were staunchly pro-life and weren't afraid to show it. Elizabeth Cady Stanton was another of the early feminists who were outspoken in their opposition to abortion.

“When we consider that women are treated as property, it is degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we see fit,” Stanton wrote to her friend Julia Ward Howe in 1873.

Victoria Woodhull, the first female stockbroker on Wall Street, also became the first woman to run for President in 1870. An early suffragette with a flair for the outrageous, Woodhull personified the modern feminist slogan “well-behaved women rarely make history.” (She was repeatedly arrested and jailed for her political activities.) And she, too, opposed abortion.

“A human life is a human life and equally to be held sacred whether it be a day or a century old,” Woodhull wrote. “Wives…to prevent becoming mothers…deliberately murder [children] while yet in their wombs. Can there be a more demoralized condition than this? ” [...]

In her suffragist newspaper The Revolution, Susan B Anthony wrote that “no matter what the motive, love of ease, or a desire to save from suffering the unborn innocent, the woman is awfully guilty who commits the deed. It will burden her conscience in life, it will burden her soul in death; but oh! thrice guilty is he who, for selfish gratification…drove her to the desperation which impelled her to the crime.”

And Anthony was by no means the only early feminist to be pro-life. In fact, many of the mothers of feminism were staunchly pro-life and weren't afraid to show it. Elizabeth Cady Stanton was another of the early feminists who were outspoken in their opposition to abortion.

“When we consider that women are treated as property, it is degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we see fit,” Stanton wrote to her friend Julia Ward Howe in 1873.

The recent testimony of Abby Johnson, former director of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Texas:

Johnson says that she was given her first opportunity to witness an abortion when she assisted at a rare ultrasound-guided abortion. As she watched the ultrasound video, she says she recognized the side profile of the 13-week-old child's face. "I saw a full side profile, so I saw face to feet on the ultrasound machine," said Johnson. "I saw the probe going into the woman's uterus, and at that moment I saw the baby moving and trying to get away from the probe." "And I thought, 'It's fighting for its life," said Johnson. "And I thought, 'It's life.' I mean, it's alive. ... "My mind was racing, my heart was beating so fast, and I just was thinking, 'Oh my gosh, make it stop.' Then all of a sudden, it was over. I saw the baby just literally crumble, and it was over." Johnson recalled that the image of the child reminded her of the ultrasound image of her own daughter at 12 weeks gestation. "If clinic workers saw what was happening on that screen, they would be running out of those clinics," Johnson concluded. "This is what the abortion industry does not want their workers to see ... they don't want people to see what's actually happening in the woman's womb."

Most of my friends have learned not to assault me on this issue because I have a practiced response.

“300,000 people will die today. Some will die in pain and terror. Others will die in peace in their sleep. Some will die suddenly. Some after prolonged illness. 25,000 of them will be kids under the age of 10. 15,000 will starve to death.

Did you do anything yesterday to prevent the starvation of one child? Are you going to do anything today? How about tomorrow?

If you are unwilling to go to effort to save a single child who is going to die tomorrow, why should I listen to you when you want to stick your nose in someone else’s business?”